Pumpkin Head

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!We have a hat ("Pumpkin Head"), which makes an appearance every October. The kids LOVE this hat! - Hendrick starting wearing "pumpkin head" three years ago and now we have four children eager (fighting) to wear this hat. They sure are cute!
We love having an excuse to have fun with pumpkins and costumes!

A Camping We Will Go...

Back to the real world...it is always hard to readjust after a fantastic family camping escape...
We Love Camping - We just returned home after a wonderful (cold) 3-day trip to Land Between the Lakes. (Our family really knows how to pick the right weekends for camping - in 3 of our 4 camping outings this past year we enjoyed evening temperatures of 30 degrees...brrrr!).
We bundled-up and had great adventures: exploring the Woodlands Nature Station, seeking out elk and bison on the Prairie, running trucks around the campsite, playing down at the lake, and hiking 2-miles as a family. We were so proud of Davis hiking the 2-miles himself! It was so nice to snuggle around the campfire and enjoy hotdogs and s'mores together. Mike did a great job keeping us warm and our wet wood lit and Hendrick was so pleased to assist him as "fire master". We did stay toasty warm at night in our rustic cabin (too cold for tent camping...next time!).

Party (An Excuse to Dress Up)

Harvest Party/ Happy Halloween/Pumpkin Bash/Fall Fest
(An Excuse to Get Together and Dress up our Kids)
We wanted our kids to wear Halloween costumes (it's so much fun!), but they are really too young for trick-or-treating...so, we decided to host a party: invite friends, have a fire and dress-up the kids. We enjoyed a beautiful crisp Fall evening, friends from work and church, and hotdogs and s'mores around the firepit...and it was so much fun to have 18 kids running around the backyard in costumes (minnie mouse, two gnomes, caterpillar, shrek, batman, indiana jones, ballerina...) We may have to make this an anual tradition!

A few of the costumed kiddos:

Our crew: Hendrick (t-rex), Davis (lion), Burke (frog), Maegli (ladybug)

Season's End

Hendrick had his final soccer game this morning. His 4-year-old team was so cute! The kids had so much fun and learned a lot these past 8 weeks. The mission of Jackson Area Wide Soccer (JAWS) is to "increase the popularity of soccer by building a program that will provide a rewarding and growthful experience for all players" - it's a fantastic program! We will miss our Saturday morning games - we enjoyed cheering on his team throughout the season ("Go Wildcats"). Great job Hendrick!!!
We are very proud soccer parents, and with four kids, we look forward to many more years of soccer games!

Lil' Pumpkins

It's that time again...PUMPKINS! We had our annual trip to the Green Acres Pumpkin Patch for a picnic, pictures and pumpkin play. The kids were very excited to pick out the "perfect" pumpkin for our home. They were so cute running around, although it was hard work to keep the four kids from eating and throwing pumpkins!

Down on the Farm

Saturday, we enjoyed a beautiful day at Donnell Century Farm. We had so much fun with Grandpa and our friend Marion and her three precious kids. The kids had a ball playing on the farm: corn sandbox, cotton jump, tube rolls, animals, corn maze and hayride. It was a great day!
Marion and the kids are moving to Colorado - we wish you the very best. We are so excited to see God working in your life. You have been a blessing in our lives - We'll miss you!!! Now, we'll have to plan a trip to Colorado...

Grandpa Was Here

We loved having Grandpa visit for the weekend - and the boys enjoyed their new "styles".

Opryland

Today was trip #4 to Nashville (in 5-weeks) for Burke's follow-up appointment at Vanderbilt (his cast is now off...please pray his fingers heal well!!!).
Amy and the kids used this trip as an excuse to explore the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center...very impressive! The center is famous for its acres of lavish indoor gardens (boasting more than 50,000 tropical plants) housed in three HUGE atrium's: Garden, Cascades and Delta. It is a little overwhelming and really amazing. We spent three hours exploring - the perfect thing to do on a rainy day. It is free to explore, but they do charge for parking (ouch!).

Knock-Knock

"Knock-Knock" outside: can you find our friendly yard woodpecker?"Knock-Knock" inside: two bitty boys with casts..."Knock-Knock" from our three boys:

Portrait

Maegli was very "thoughtful" for her (9-month) Sears Portrait session (you can't beat that $9.99 portrait package!). Little girl was a wonderfully behaved subject, although she seemed slightly concerned, had her expressive eyebrows working overtime, and kept her mouth closed tight - no cheesy grins in this sitting!
She sure is sweet!
Maegli is wearing her Mama's dress!

From the archives...

This is tiny Davis' hand with Daddy's wedding ring when he was in the NICU - he was about 1 week old at this time. We are so blessed with how God has protected his health!

"The Touch, The Feel of Cotton..."

We are amazed every October to see the fields around our neighborhood erupt with balls of white. The cotton fields are beautiful and last only a few short weeks before they are harvested. We had never seen a cotton before we moved to Tennessee - we naively assumed the fields were soybeans (the white puffs were very confusing!).
The kids are fascinated by the "cotton ball fields". We (most of us) had fun today visiting a field nearby and "touching" the cotton plants - the puffs are very soft and feel like fibrous cotton balls, but the plant itself is quite prickly. Burke wasn't too pleased to be so up-close-and-personal with the cotton ball field!

What happens next: This month we'll get to watch the machine pickers go through the fields near our home and dump the fluffy cotton into module builders where it will be packed into a semi-solid mass (module) and transported to a cotton gin (where the cotton fiber is separated from the seed, packed into "bales" and sold to be made into fabric). Awesome!

Third Time's a Charm?

It is not easy keeping a 21-month-old BOY in a cast!!!
We have had an eventful post-surgery week with Burke (who is now 21-months old - wow!). Burke was doing great (praise God!), but chewed at his first cast and after 4 days, the cast fell off. We had him re-cast at Convenient Care in town...two days later, his new cast fell off! Wednesday, Amy took Burke and Maegli back to Vanderbilt for an early post-surgery visit with his plastic surgeon. Unfortunately the repair site isn't healing as well as we hoped (probably because we can't keep the casts on!). We now have #3 - a full-arm cast...this one won't come off easily (we hope). God has been so faithful in meeting all of our needs - we are so thankful. We pray Burke's fingers will heal fully and that this will be the final cast for our baby boy.

2 -1/2

"Me too, me too..." Our sweet tumbleweed Davis turns 2 and 1/2 today! We are continually amazed by his progress in therapy classes and his newfound vocabulary. He constantly requests we read a "big book" and lets his brothers know he is around with very loud and frequent yells of "my turn!" Davis is a tender-hearted child and loves snuggling with mommy and daddy, of which we are only too happy to oblige....

Giggle Kids

Brave Boy

Yesterday, our brave boy, Burke, had his hand surgery. Burke underwent plastic surgery at Vanderbilt to repair two fingers injured over the summer. We are so relieved this is over, and so glad the surgery went well - Praise God! Burke will be in a cast for the next two weeks (to keep his fingers straight) - watch out! We pray that when the cast comes off, everything will have healed well and we can move on.
We are so thankful to the wonderful team of experts at the Surgery Center, and for our friends, Jill and G, for hanging out with the other boys while we spent the day in Nashville - you are awesome, thank you!!!!